"Empress Dowager Cixi" Topic

"If I hadn't suddenly taken an interest in the Last Emperor of China I would probably have never read this book. I had seen it as an imposing hardback on shelves and had picked it up but then I didn't feel curious about late Imperial China at that moment & I had never heard of Empress Dowager Cixi, let alone Jung Chang.
Suffice to say things changed, and a combination of finishing Julia Lovell's Opium War and stumbling onto the story of Puyi I saw Chang's book for half price and quickly decided that if I was to read about the Last Emperor, the story of Cixi would be invaluable to me. How right I was.

The biography is of Empress Dowager Cixi, a concubine who became a regent, who ruled the largest population in the world for much of her life, and also the oldest empire in the world, needless to say, change came hard to China. By a quirk of fate Cixi would take responsibility for setting this ancient kingdom onto the road to becoming a modern state.

If Cixi had been a western monarch she would probably have been remembered as one of the greatest that ever lived. But being Chinese, a woman and being part of the imperial hegemony that ruled China for almost 300 years, she became a victim of communist revisionist historians, who painted her as either a tyrant or hopelessly inept…"

Full review here
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Amicalement
Armand

Sterling Seagrave published a biography of Cixi (Tzu-Hsi) (Suzy) about 20 years ago that I thought did her justice.

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One of Flashman's babes.
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I have and read that book my friend.
You are right.

Amicalement
Armand